Film Flam

Your favorite Co-ed Dorm Wall Clock was shocked–SHOCKED!!!–to read our fresh-pressed copy of the Monday edition of the Chapman UniversityPanther student newspaper (where, little known factoid, we twice toiled as a fill-in faculty advisor, until a certain former LA “By God” Times slacker slid in and put a spell under head honchoess Sue Paterno. Damn you, Jerry Hicks, damn your shapely thighs!) It was this headline that had our just-chewed Special K flying across the breakfast nook:

“Racy Student Film Draws CU Officials' Attention.”

And well it should, because diligent Panther reporter (and former Weekly intern) Heather Reger draws out a jaw-dropping tale of woe–and woo–about a risque Chapman student film whose mere existence prompted a “disgruntled” university trustee to press CU Prez Jim Doti for answers. And what was it, according to Reger, that put Ryan Witherspoon's shortie Barely Legal on the prominent (though unnamed) board member's radar? Why it was a film piece in a certain Weekly by the handsomest writer in the land! Writes Reger …

The March 30 column poked fun at the conservative reputation held by many at Chapman and the irony that the university produced the
student film Barely Legal that suggested pornography and featured the dramatized rape of an intoxicated woman at a college party.
Upon the request of President Jim Doti, Witherspoon–the writer, director and producer–provided a director's statement to Film School Dean Bob Bassett.

Dean Bassett–DEAD! Sorry, slipped into Animal House mode there. For his part, Witherspoon tells Reger what an ordeal this high-level pressure has put on him…

“The publicity has been great. I think this is a film that should be widely seen.”

Is this kid a film major or a marketing major?

As for Doti, he essentially locks his office door, hides under his desk and puts his fingers in his ears while humming “La-la-la” until the probing Reger goes away, although she more diplomatically encapsulates the incident with a brief, “Doti declined to comment.” Now, what this Sexed-Up Seiko found most interesting of all was the Weekly passage the Panther chose to pass on. See, with that earlier reference to the institution's “conservative reputation,” we figured they'd go with the opener, especially since it's filled with so many colorful Chapman characters …

Oh, to be a fruit fly on the wall at the Dodge School of Film and Media Studies 2006 “Let the Good Times Roll 'Em” Awards Banquet. Picture Chapman University's largest–in every sense of the word–benefactor George Argyros, every splatter of banquet chicken and gravy falling off his grapefruit-sized chin immediately swabbed by wee Chapman prez James Doti. Alum and former Orange County GOP chairman Tom Fuentes would hold court in the middle of the room, regaling his bored tablemates with his tales of destroying California public education one community college district at a time. And stuck at the far back table, the one they ran out of tablecloths for, the one that's so close to the swinging kitchen doors that one door actually smacks liberal poli-sci prof Fred Smoller's chair, would be alum and U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), regaling her tablemates with her tales of students being squelched in their quest to make her their commencement speaker immediately after she made history by becoming the first Latina member of Congress. Giving a full belly laugh to that one would be the commencement speaker administrators unilaterally substituted for Sanchez, Republican former congressman from Newport Beach, Chris Cox, eavesdropping from the Fuentes table and in town to help three-quarters of the room escape the probing efforts of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission Cox now chairs. No wonder they call the school Dodge.

But, alas, the article goes with the more titillating …

The shocked crowd would be subjected to pill-popping, lesbianism, anal sex (desired, not shown), lost virginity, cumming on tits (suggested, not shown) and a guy going all Haidl on a passed-out girl (without the Snapple bottle, lit cigarette, juice can, pool cue, etc.).

My oh my, that's the first time I can recall reading “cumming on tits” on the front page of a student newspaper. This sure ain't the La-La Times, eh Jerry?

And now the ironiest of ironies of all: Witherspoon says he will indeed enter Barely Legal for a Chapman U film award, and ya'll can call us Kreskin.

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper’s first calendar editor. He went on to be managing editor, executive editor and is now senior staff writer.